“Technology and Innovation for the Base of the Pyramid” featuring Professor Iqbal Quadir
On the evening of Wednesday February 22, the Social Enterprise Institute welcomed Professor Iqbal Quadir, the Founder and Director of MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. Professor Quadir is perhaps most well known as the founder of Grameenphone, a company that paved the way for universal access to telephone service in Bangladesh, his native country.
Over 100 students and community members were present for Professor Quadir’s lecture, which was divided into three modules. He began by discussing the Legatum Center’s work in promoting the creation of technology-based, for-profit enterprises in low-income countries through the Legatum Fellowship. The fellowship has been awarded to 90 students since 2008, and provides support for the creation of for-profit enterprises in a range of industries in low-income countries primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.
To kick off his second module, Professor Quadir posed a straightforward question: what is it that makes low-income countries poor? After a lengthy brainstorm that included a discussion of possible causes ranging from governmental corruption to the lack of educational opportunities, Professor Quadir expounded that the key to improving a country’s economic situation lies in the development and distribution of technologies that empower people and disperse power from a concentrated center.
Professor Quadir presented a “win-win-win paradigm” based on the development of technologies, or productivity tools, designed to make people more productive. In this paradigm, businesses, people, and countries “win” when businesses sell tools for productivity, people earn a higher income through the use of these tools, and ultimately, countries’ GDP increases. Examples of these productivity tools include personal computers, bicycles, sewing machines, solar panels, and cell phones.
The enormous impact of making one of these productivity tools—cell phones—accessible through the work of Grameenphone was the focus of Professor Quadir’s third module. He emphasized the importance of increasing productivity and capitalizing on economic opportunities through using innovative methods to bring available technologies to market.
Working in tandem with Grameen Bank, Grameenphone was able to provide cell phone access to 100 million Bangladeshis who previously had no access to cell phone technology. Grameenphone is currently the largest telephone company in Bangladesh, with 35 million subscribers.
Professor Quadir’s lecture provided an interesting and informative overview of market-based solutions to what are often viewed as seemingly insurmountable problems faced by those living in poverty. For more information about Professor Iqbal Quadir and the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, please visit http://legatum.mit.edu/.
